1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a print control system including a host computer and a printing apparatus, and more particularly, relates to a print control system that suitably transmits print data to the printing apparatus from the host computer depending on a usage status of a memory of the printing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is known a print control system in which print data transmitted from a host computer, such as a personal computer (PC), is stored in a printing apparatus without printing the print data immediately, and print processing is executed when a user has performed operation for printing in front of the printing apparatus. In such a print control system, for example, when the user gives a print instruction to the host computer, the host computer causes the user to input password, and transmits the print data added with the input password to the printing apparatus. Then, when the user has input a correct password on an operation screen of the printing apparatus, printing apparatus performs printing based on the print data attached with the password. Such a print control system is useful, for example, in a case where the printing apparatus is a shared printer connected to a network, and it is advisable that the printed products are not seen by other people.
In this regard, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 6-237347 discusses a printing apparatus (image processing apparatus) that, when executing a copy job, checks a usage status of a memory, and if a remaining memory capacity falls below a threshold value, warns that the job cannot be executed.
However, in a system in which the print data transmitted from the host computer is retained in the printing apparatus, the print data continues to be stored in the memory of the printing apparatus until the user inputs password on the operation screen of the printing apparatus. Therefore, the memory of the printing apparatus will be occupied by the print data for a long time, and as a result, there is a possibility that other jobs cannot be executed.
Further, even if execution of jobs is restricted by the printing apparatus based on the usage status of the memory, it is not until the user goes to the front of the printing apparatus that the user who has given print instruction to the host computer knows that the job cannot be executed. Therefore, the user needs to return to the host computer and to give the print instruction after waiting for the remaining memory capacity to fall below the threshold value, and thus it is inefficient.